China's PLA Navy Gets an LCAC

12 May 2010

Well look at that, the Chinese navy has got itself a Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC). More photos of new additions to China's growing fleet at Information Dissemination. If China is serious about building an amphibious warfare capability, I'd be curious to know what their answer is to the anti-access challenge. My guess is they don't have one. Precision guided weapons work both ways, of course, and our battle networks are pretty good at long-range targeting.

When RAND recently wargamed a Chinese invasion of Taiwan they found that a Chinese amphibious assault could become a "bloody fiasco" in the face of determined Taiwanese resistance. Still, I'm sure there is some Chinese think tank working vigorously on an AirSea Battle concept that envisions the PLA navy using their new LCACs.